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Why I Write – Kathy Gevlin

I write to figure out what it is I think. About things that happened to me or people I know, about people, about the passage of time. I write to understand and process – sometimes just to find –my own emotions. When I can locate them, I can begin to better understand others, I think. When I get it the words right (which isn’t often) I feel it. I feel that I have somehow reincarnated that lost parent or lover or friend who I never understood. And then I say huh, I think I get you now. It is a very cool feeling.

I write because I love to read, because other writers have helped me feel less lonely, more a part of something big.

I write because I am trying to understand what it means to love. Not romantically, but “universally.” I am intrigued at the thought that the more different we are, the less different we are. I think writers have from the beginning of time helped us find our similarities, our common humanity.

I write because it is fun – a great challenge for me. I love crossword puzzles, I love word games. For me, writing is like another game. Can I say it better? Have I hit the mark in translating what I feel into words so that others might understand?

I write, because it is the most fascinating, intellectually challenging thing I have ever done, and I think it is helping me figure out who I am.

My early years were sadly eventful – senseless deaths of parents, friends, children. Pedophilia. Mental illness. It was hard to figure out how I felt then and what I could do about any of it. I have been blessed with a few decades of sheer bliss. I write, I guess in part, to reconcile the difference between those two times.

Kathy Gevlin is a writer who lives in Dobbs Ferry, NY. After several decades of writing about finance and marketing, she discovered the joys of writing fiction and is currently working on a novel.